July 1958 – Wordless Wednesday
Category Archives: Grahams
“F” is for Fairfield
This post continues a series using the Alphabet to go through streets that were significant in my life as part of the Family History Through the Alphabet Challenge.
In the fall of 1968, Henry, my mother and her parents, Mershell and Fannie Graham, bought the flat at 16201 Fairfield. The Graham home on Theodore had been invaded, shot into and suffered an attempted armed robbery. Nobody had been hurt.
In the spring of that same year an insurance salesman was shot to death in front of our house on Oregon. The murderer cut through our backyard during his escape. Although nobody was home, my mother never felt the same about living there. They began to look for a flat to share.
I lived there from the fall of 1968 until I left home in the spring of 1969. My grandparents lived there until they died in 1973 and 1974. My mother and Henry were there until 1976, when they moved to Idlewild. My sister, Pearl, was a sophomore at Howard University when we moved and never lived there, although she came home for holidays.
The people in the photos are, starting upstairs and going from left to right – Henry looking firm, me the night before I left on my cross country tour, Pearl and my mother. Downstairs we have my aunt Mary Virginia who lived with her parents for some months, Alice (my grandmother’s youngest sister), my grandmother Fannie, my grandfather Mershell and my mother holding my daughter, Jilo. I got the idea for this photo house from a photograph I saw via twitter of a house in Detroit. You can see it at Detroitsees here.
The flat on Fairfield was kitty-corner from a University of Detroit field. The only thing I remember happening on that field while I lived there was a high school band rally with different bands doing routines throughout a Saturday. I remember staying up late working on art projects and catching the bus across the street to go to campus. Most of my memories are of returning to visit with my oldest daughter. I know that I didn’t spend half as much time as I could/should have spent talking with my grandparents when they were right downstairs.
This house is still standing and looking very good. You can see it on the corner in the street sign photo above. Although the hospital that used to be directly across the street is gone, the rest of the block is all there! Whooooohooooo!
You can see my mother and grandfather’s wonderful garden and read more about Poppy in “Poppy Could Fix Anything.”
Mershell Graham and Fannie Mae Turner Marriage License – June 11, 1919
On June 11, 1919 Mershell Graham and Fannie Mae Turner applied for a marriage license in Montgomery, Alabama. They were married by Rev. E.E. Scott at First Congregational Church in Montgomery on June 15. I have no photographs of the marriage or memories that were handed down. I could find no record of their marriage license in the Montgomery Advertiser. They seemed to have no section devoted to “News of the Colored Folk” as some newspapers did.
Soon after the ceremony my grandparents left and returned to Detroit where Mershell was working. I assume they took the train, which would have been segregated at that time. They roomed with friends from home, Moses and Jean Walker. There were other roomers, all of them saving up to be able to purchase their own homes.
To read Mershell’s letter of proposal read The proposal To read Fannie’s letter of acceptance read – The acceptance
I found several marriage related, handwritten poems in my grandparents papers and have printed them below. I wonder if they read these during the ceremony or exchanged them.
The gift
Yes, take her and be faithful, still, and may your bridal bower,
Be sacred kept in after years, and warmly breathed as now,
Remember tis no common tie that binds your youthful hearts
Tis one that only truth should breath and only death should part.
Remember tis for you she leaves her home and mother dear,
To have this world with you alone, your good and ill to share,
Then take her and may future years mark only joys increase
And may your days glide sweetly on in happiness and peace.
The Brides Farewell
Soon, soon I’ll go – from those I love
You, Mother, Sister, among the nest,
Where I will often think of you,
Far in the distant west.
Farewell, Mother, though I leave you
Still I love you, Oh! believe me
and when I am far away
Back to you my thoughts will stray.
Oft, I’ll think of you and home
Though in other lands I’ll roam.
Yes, though miles may intervene,
I will keep thy memory green
Mother, sister, from my heart
Thoughts of thee shall never depart.
Mershell Cunningham Graham Junior – June 10, 1921 – November 2, 1927
Mershell Cunningham Graham Jr was born at 7:45 pm on June 10 in 1921, a Friday, He was the first son and second child of Mershell and Fannie (Turner) Graham. He was delivered at Dunbar Hospital by Dr. Turner. Mershell was a big baby, weighing 8 1/2 pounds. He joined older sister, 14 month old Mary Virginia. Twenty months later his younger sister, my mother Doris, joined them.
Mershell was an active boy, falling down the clothes chute and breaking a window during a game of “who can hit their head against the window the hardest” with his younger sister, Doris. In family photographs, he shows no fear of the ferocious puppy or the family chickens.
On November 1, 1927, he was hit by a truck on his way back to school after lunch. He died just after midnight on November 2. My sister, cousins and I grew up with warnings to be careful crossing the street and to remember what happened to Mershell.
My mother wrote on the page of practice writing above “Mother teaching him to write his name.”
Related links – Births, Deaths, Doctors and Detroit Part 1; 1940 Census – the Grahams – Supplemental Material; Go Bury thy sorrow – complete words and tune.
Mershell C. Graham Coming Home From Work
1940 Census – Frank and Mary Elkins Family
In the 1940 Census, the Frank and Mary Elkins family was living at 3045 Anderdon Street in Detroit, Michigan. The rent was $30 a week and they had lived in the same house in 1935. Everybody in the household had been identified as “W(hite)”, that was crossed out and “Neg(ro)” was written over it. Unfortunately, no household on this page has the person who provided the information to the enumerator identified.
The father of the family, Frank Elkins, was 57 years old and had completed 4 years of high school. He worked at an auto plant as a courtesy driver. One of his granddaughters has informed me that he worked as a driver for Graham Paige Motors.
His wife, Mary, was 47 and not employed outside the home. She had completed 2 years of High school. She had made $50 in the last year outside of wages or salary. Daughter Mary was 21 and single. She had completed 4 years of high school and was not enrolled in school. She was not employed outside of the home.
- Mother Mary Elkins and son Frank “Bud” Elkins
Young Frank was 19, single and had completed 1 year of college. He had attended school sometime since March 1, 1940. He was not employed. His daughter, Dee Dee, remembers that Frank graduated with honors from Cass Technical High School and went right to work, starting Elkin’s Electric Company. He tried to join the Electricians Union, but they barred Black folks from joining. In 1941 Frank and my aunt Mary V. Graham were married at Plymouth Congregational Church.
- You can see an image of the original census sheet here Elkins 1940 Census.
- To see where my Detroit relatives lived in 1940, click Where we lived.
Cost of Attending Wayne University in Detroit in 1940
In February, 1940 my mother entered Wayne University. She received a full scholarship from the Detroit Board of education and a scholarship from the Delta Sorority for an an additional $100.
How much did it cost to attend Wayne in 1940? For residents of Wayne County, which my mother was, tuition for a full time student was $50. There was a $10 fee for entering freshmen. Textbooks would have been $5 or under.
When I went to Wayne from 1964 to 1968, tuition came to about $300 a year. Text books were still about $10. By the time my daughter attended during the 1998 – 1999 school year, tuition and fees were $3,708 a year. She says one book could cost $50. All of us lived at home and commuted, so had no housing costs.
My granddaughter Sydney, who is a freshman at Georgia State University and lives on campus. She could hardly believe these numbers. I just looked and tuition and housing this year, is over $20,000.
Fannie Graham’s Journal Entries -1940
I published a longer post that included this information (without the actual pages) along with entries from my grandmother’s other journals in 2010. I am only including information from 1940 this time.
Feb. 5, 1940
Dear God and Little Book: the mail has just brought us the long looked for letter from Wayne University and the Board of Education that Doris has received the yearly scholarship to Wayne… I shed tears of joy… for more reasons than one or even two and the main reason is she deserves it for being such a sweet little “trick”…even if we do say so ourselves.
February 12 – Doris’s birthday – 17 today. We had a nice dinner, cake, ice cream and gifts for her from all.
March 12, my birthday, among all a purchase certificate from JL Hudson’s from our daughters and dad
April 3 – Mary Virginia is 20 today. We had nice dinner cake and ice cream and gifts from us all – also Aunt Daisy never forgets with money.
Dad celebrates Christmas day.
April 12-The Grahams were enumerated. No mention in the Little Book.
June 7, 1940 Doris received $100 scholarship from the Deltas today… Isn’t that grand! It served 2 years.
June 10 — Mary Virginia has just gotten (through Jim and May) a good job at the County Bldg — God is so good to us. and today our Mershell Jr would have been 19 if he had lived – but we still say – God knows best.
1940 Census – Where We Lived in Detroit
Several days ago Cassmob’s of Family history across the seas blog had an interactive map of places she’s been writing about in Papua, New Guinea. I immediately went to Google Maps to figure out how to do it myself. Below is a map of places my family lived during the 1940 Census in Detroit. If you click on the blue markers it will tell you who lived there and how they are related to my grandparents.
View 1940 Detroit, Michigan – Where we lived in a larger map
Detroit is divided by Woodward Avenue into Westside and Eastside. My Cleages are all clustered close on the Westside, which is also where I grew up. The Grahams are more spread out on the Eastside. Plymouth had a vibrant youth group program in the 1930 and that is where my parents met. The old Plymouth Congregational Church was urban renewed in the late 1970s and moved location but in 1940 it was located at Garfield and Beaubien, right in the middle of what is now the Detroit Medical Center.
There is a way to insert pop up photographs too which I am going to figure out next.
Bird’s Eye View, 1940 – Wordless Wednesday
I don’t know who the young woman on the left is, next is my mother, Doris Graham, my uncle Hugh Cleage and my aunt Mary V. Graham. Taken in 1940 in Detroit, Michigan. Photographer not known.